Actualités et faits de société Lecture 9 The Labour Party

Historical overview Keir Hardie Scottish miner, leader of a strike elected in 1892 as an independent candidate 1893: forms the Independent Labour Party 1900: the Labour Representation Party (trade union representatives, the ILP, and the Fabian Society) wins 2 seats in the General election  1906: the Labour Party wins 29 seats in the House of Commons.

Historical overview socialist ideals of equality yet, original logo: (red flag, etc.) special relationship with trade unions (TU representatives can vote for the election of the leader of the Labour Party)

Historical overview Clause IV of the constitution of the Labour Party:  principle of nationalisation of industrial means of production

Historical overview Clement Attlee (post-war Labour PM, 1945-1951) massive pragmatic programme of nationalisations of utilities and key industries after the war (20% of the British economy was state-owned by 1951, eg Bank of England, coal mining, steel, railways, etc.) wish to ensure full employment along Keynesian lines, supported by the Tories: consensus politics

Historical overview Harold Wilson (Labour PM, 1964-1970, 1974-1976) rejection of Marxist doctrines social progress (anti-discrimination laws, legalisation of abortion, end of death penalty…)

The ‘wilderness years’ 1979: Labour PM Jim Callaghan resigns after a Parliamentary vote of no confidence. 1979: Margaret Thatcher becomes PM the years between 1979 and 1997 are ‘wilderness years’ for the Labour Party, whose MPs spend 18 years in opposition, losing 4 General Elections to the Tory Party.

New Labour and the ‘Third Way’ 1997 General Election: landslide victory for Tony Blair’s New Labour (418 seats in the House of Commons, 43% of the vote) Blair becomes PM and Brown Chancellor of the Exchequer stark contrast between Blair’s relaxed attitude and charisma, as opposed to former PM John Major: ‘call me Tony’!

New Labour and the ‘Third Way’ New Labour: no longer the party of the working class only, but that of the up and coming trendy middle class Blair wished to project the image of leader of Cool Britannia

Symbolic rupture: Tony Blair’s new Clause IV, 1994 nevertheless, Tony Blair’s rewriting of Clause IV when he became leader of the Labour Party in 1994 was seen as a symbolic rupture with the party’s socialist past no mention of the nationalisation of means of production in the party’s manifesto

Symbolic rupture: Tony Blair’s new Clause IV, 1994 no mention of common and state-ownership anymore endorsement of a market economy key aspects of New Labour: modernisation of a party to appeal to middle- and upper-class electorate too a swerve to the right

New Labour and the ‘Third Way’ admiration of Bill Clinton’s ‘New Democrats’ in the USA defines New Labour’s ‘Third Way’ in a speech in NYC in 1998: “it takes the essential values of the centre and centre-left - underpinning what in Europe is called social democracy and in the USA the progressive tradition - and applies them to a world of fundamental social and economic change, free from outdated ideology.”

New Labour and the ‘Third Way’ combination of left-wing social policies and right-wing economic policies limiting the role of the state in the economy (neoliberal ideology) focusing on giving the state a new role in the social sphere, especially for the NHS, in education, and in fighting crime

Economic policy break away with the party’s reputation of being a ‘tax and spend’ party adoption of a neoliberal economic policy, largely inherited from the Tories

Economic policy corporation tax and taxes on the rich to remain low (// Thatcher) commitment to nationalisation completely abandoned; an even increasing role of private finance in the public sector (hospitals, schools, prisons) (// Thatcher) development of the financial sector over the industrial one (finance: 30% of British economy) (// Thatcher) 1997: ‘we accept the global economy as a reality’

Economic policy low unemployment until 2007 and uninterrupted growth BUT, this success can be qualified: inequalities between the richest and the poorest Britons deeply widened (10% of the richest own 15 times more of the national income than the poorest 10%; salaries of big business bosses continued to rise extravagantly under New Labour)

Other guideline policies social justice promises not really fulfilled: problem of the working poor, an increasingly large social class under New Labour (promise to ‘make work pay’ not kept) social exclusion policies based on a strict sense of morality: Labour will only help those who ‘play by the rules’: employment benefits will only be given to the ‘deserving’ people, prepared to accept whatever job; parents of juvenile delinquents to attend compulsory parenting classes and

Other guideline policies crime policy became very strict under Tony Blair’s New Labour breaking away with the image that Labour is ‘soft on crime’ motto after the James Bulger murder by two 10 years-old: ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ prison population is the highest in Europe (153/100,000) and has increased exponentially, especially since new criminal offenses have been created especially strict towards young offenders, criminalised for ‘minor offenses’ Crime and Disorder Act, 1998, reduced the age of criminal responsibility to 10 years old.

Other guideline policies education: introduction of ‘top-up fees’ in higher education, allowing elite universities to charge their students as much as they like (eg, one year in Oxford, depending on your parents’ household income, can cost from £3,000 to £9,000); Tony Blair faced a backbench rebellion on this bill, which was nevertheless passed with a majority of only 5 votes in January 2004

Other guideline policies constitutional reform see Lecture 6 for the reform of the House of Lords, 1999 see Lecture 2 for devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Labour Today Gordon Brown (2007-2010) seen as the reason why Labour lost the 2010 General Election (only 29% of the vote) Ed Miliband (2010-2015), promised a swerve to the left, contrary to what Blair and Brown had done  still not convinving, with only 29% of people voting for Labour in 2015 Jeremy Corbyn (2015-?): newly elected leader: potential swerve to the left, anti-monarchist views